I know it’s tax season but dang!!!!

IRS Thieves.So it’s tax season.

Everyone is “thrilled”. Especially now that we know that 100 billion of our taxes went “Missing” miraculously in transit to Ukraine. Then we’ve seen how more of money has been wasted by USAID and God only knows what other B.S. departments within our government.

What I’m saying is everyone is cranky. Myself included.

This has bearing on me, because I’m trying to locate either an application that I can use to plug in the finite numbers of my income, interest paid, medical expenses, etc. have this super powerful computer in my lap, do the freaking math, then print out the results on a form to mail to the freaking Tax collectors Federal & State.

Or someone to do my taxes that doesn’t add $300 to $1000 to my already overly expensive taxes, which feel like forced donation to a bunch of clowns with zero respect for the American People.

You’d think this would be simple. You’d be wrong!

I read reviews. I’ve been reading reviews about TurboTax (who by the way annoy me because their website tells me to login to a nonexistent account when I try to purchase their software and doesn’t have a provision to create the account. So if they can’t get a website software right, do I have faith in their ability to actually do my tax math right? Perhaps Not!)

It seems that I’m not alone in questioning TurboTax, but others are flat out livid that the applications both desktop and mobile don’t work as advertised and that they nickel & dime you to death to boot.

Then there’s H&R Block. I used them many years ago and was okay with them. Keyword, many years ago… Their reviews are also not particularly favorable. For the same reasons as TurboTax. Unexpected add on fees. Malfunctions in the applications. One review said that the IRS was rejecting the H&R Block filing because the SS and DOB didn’t match IRS records. H&R Block was not only unhelpful, but downright dismissive and apparently didn’t refund the e-filing fee either.

TaySlayer? They too have strings of nasty reviews. Agin citing unexpected fees, application / web site problems and unresponsive customer support. 

To be fair, when I’m looking at reviews I sort them by “most recent”. Given the general crankiness of the American people at Tax time, coupled with what appears to be stratospheric corruption in the government. Perhaps the reviews are more negative because the folks reviewing these applications or agencies are just really pissed off.

Nonetheless, for someone like me that has used an accountant to do my taxes for the past 30+ years…

It makes things more difficult.


Update: Less than an hour after posting this. Costco sent me an email that said I could get TurboTax through them for ~ $60.

That was by far the best price I’d seen and since all the tax programs were about the same price, $80 – $90 I jumped on the discount from Costco.

My taxes are done. I haven’t sent anything yet. 

I’ve got a multiyear tax mess that I’m fixing and I need to get previous years editions. I want to make sure that the previous stuff doesn’t affect the current data. I don’t think it will but I’m mistrustful of anything associated with the IRS.

Honestly, I’ve been terrified of the IRS and taxes for my entire adult life. Part of that is the way the IRS dealt with my father and stepfather when they’d made mistakes. In the case of my stepfather the mistake wasn’t his.

It was a company he worked for who was purchased. Both companies sent W-2s the purchasing company neglected to check the amended box on the 2nd W2 stating that the 2nd simply changed the name of the company to the IRS which doubled his income. It took 6 months for him to get the IRS to understand what happened. It took corporate attorneys, and all manner of accountants, plus time off from work.

Those memories made unwilling to attempt to do my own taxes when it was just paper, and a calculator. Over the years, it became habit and I thought nothing of it until last year when my accountant really dropped the ball.

This by the way was the second time he’d screwed up in 20 years and both times cost me a shit ton of money. He of course danced away without even a “Sorry about that.” Last year he screwed up the calculation on my state return as well.

So this baggage was on my mind as I fired up my brand new Turbotax. Interesting thing is that the program asked me to create an account, unlike their screwy website that wouldn’t allow a purchase without an account and wouldn’t let me create one.

I sat here for about 2 hours maybe a little longer because I had to dig up some bits of information. In the end, after I’d put all the data in, and answered the questions the program asked, Turbotax put my super powerful computer to the math tasks for about 5 – 10 seconds.

The CPU didn’t even breathe hard. It looked like the program reached out to verify some rules or something because there was a data burst on the router.

Then bingo. 

Everything was finished. The program ran a probability of audit based on the data provided and gave me a near zero possibility. 

The requisite information was transferred to the state tax subroutines. There were a few more questions then another 5 -10 seconds and bingo the state was done too.

I smiled. This is what a super powerful computer is supposed to do!

Something else changed too.

I can do this crap! My computer and I can handle it. 

1/4 of the load was taken off my mind. The remaining 3/4 I can do. Although, the last 1/4 might be a bit of a challenge. I’m confident.

And because I hate the IRS and state taxation… I’m mailing in hardcopies. Maybe next year, I’ll e-file. But why should I make it easy for them?

I’m paying for the software, I paid for the computer, I’d have to pay a nominal fee to e-file. Seems to me the IRS and State should take $100 off our taxes for making their job easy by transferring the preprocessed data directly to their computers.

Maybe I’m being petty.

That was easier than I thought it would be…

Apple account migration.jpg.First, some background.

There once was a time when every time I walked into an Apple Store they asked me for an email address. At the time I was trying every free email provider on the planet, so I’d give the Apple folks whichever email address I was using at that particular moment.

What I didn’t know is that Apple was creating Apple IDs with all these weird email addresses. I didn’t find this out until years later when I was talking with Apple Tech support about some purchased music that I couldn’t locate in my iTunes library.

When the representative asked me which Apple ID I’d purchased the music under, I was taken aback. To my knowledge I had a primary Apple ID and a secondary Apple ID that was used exclusively for purchases.

The Representative told me I had 15 Apple IDs that had become associated with my name over the years. How he knew this, had something to do with them all being associated with my phone number or other identifying stuff.

Needless to say, I asked that he delete all but the primary and move my purchases to the primary account. I was trying to implement Highlander rules and make it so “there can be only one!”

Alas, that wasn’t possible. So I stuck with the two Apple IDs and in fact it was a security feature because if someone got my primary Apple ID, they wouldn’t have access to my credit card information stored with the secondary ID. A pitiful security feature but that was the best I could do at the time.

Apple has since strengthened their security and I began to wish that I only had one Apple ID. 

Within the past month or so, Apple rolled out the ability to merge IDs.

I gave it a shot yesterday. I’d seen that other people were having problems with the process and since I had a large library of music and video I called Apple Support.

I wanted them to be there watching on their end in case everything blew up. At least they’d leave fingerprints on the process.

The Representative was very helpful and we walked through the process together. Much to my surprise, (because when it comes to software, if it’s gonna break, it’s gonna break on me,) the process worked like a champ. Everything from the secondary and primary accounts moved/merged within just a few minutes. Apple warns that it could take hours. 

The Apple Representative waited patiently as I made appropriate changes to My computer, iPad, Watch, Apple TVs, HomePods, and HomePod Minis.

Everything worked as advertised and now

There is Only One!

It’s a simple thing, but it will make maintenance and replacing devices in the future much simpler.

So good job Apple!

And thank you.

Hmm. Talk about misreading a room!

I’m honestly not sure what to think about this whole Zelensky affair.

Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky in the Oval Office.Seeing the Ukrainian Ambassador essentially face palm it was pretty darn funny. Her expression was one of “Oh Shit! This isn’t going well at all.”

We’ll never know if she told Zelensky to just make nice in front of the cameras, sign the mineral deal, and we’ll negotiate these other issues on the backend. 

That probably would have worked very well. “Give a little, get a little”.

Trump and his people are no doubt very aware that the American People have had quite enough lighting our tax dollars on fire. Therefore a public showing of American getting something in return for their support of Ukraine, and a more private deal in a conference room who’ll have been much more likely to have been agreed to.

There’ve been reports that part of the deal Trump was suggesting was to negotiate more European involvement in securing Ukraine in addition to America naturally protecting businesses and citizens who would be working on the minerals side of things.

I believe and always have believed that Putin’s biggest reason for invading Ukraine, (Aside from Biden being very poor in international policy), was the NATO connection. NATO membership for Ukraine brings with it, all kinds of unacceptable issues including weapons systems and potentially nukes of various types right to the border of Russia.

Biden’s posturing about Ukraine being given NATO membership, might not have been the only reason Putin Invaded, but it damn sure had to have been a factor.

Zelensky getting mouthy with The President, The Vice President, The Secretary of State and others, in front of The American People, in The White House was a super bad move.

For many of the American people tired of financing the Ukraine, Zelensky looked like one of those homeless people who demand money from you as you walk past then get belligerent when you say you haven’t got anything to give them.

Indeed lots of Americans have suffered with taxes, inflation, and all the other issues the past 5 years brought them. And yet Billions kept flowing to Ukraine while our own people suffered. 

I think Zelensky will not be seeing any more American money, weapons, or resources. Even if he apologizes it might not matter. Americans are souring on propping up everybody else’s countries or governments. Especially when doing so leaves our people wanting.

I’m leaning toward Zelensky missing some social queues. Perhaps he thought he’d plead his case in front of the American People, hoping that they would intercede with the mean new administration. If that was his plan, he grossly misread America.

Zelensky was being criticized by medrmebers of his own government Friday evening. Who knows? Zelensky might be on his way out as the President of Ukraine too.

Ya know… As disruptive as it is, I think DOGE is a good thing.

I know there are a lot of people who will disagree with me on this.

DOGE is doing exactly what has been needed in our Government for a very long time. I might go so far as to say DOGE is akin to Ivermectin in that it’s killing off parasites.

Then there’s Tulsi Gabbard who summarily fired a bunch of “Intelligence” workers who spent their days using secure servers to hold discussions of a sexual nature.

Pete Hegseth and Trump are cleaning house in The Pentagon and Kash Patel & Dan Bongino are working the FBI.

I’m looking forward to Pam Bondi restructuring the DOJ such that we never see the abuses of past years again.

I’ve been very amused at the Democrats complaining that Bongino isn’t qualified. Folks, he was Secret Service and apparently qualified enough to guard Hillary Clinton. He’s got the degrees, and law enforcement background. So Democrats once again are outright lying, because they don’t like him.

I swear to God, if the Democrats just started telling the freakin truth it would go a long way toward saving their party.

Alas, they’re so used to blatantly lying and getting away with it, that now they can’t stop themselves, indeed, they may not even know they’ve crossed the line between truth and fiction.

All of this popped to mind as I was reading the latest out of Washington.

Adam schiff donald trump.As the government workers scream about being asked to spend 5 minutes writing a bullet list of their activities for the week, and national intelligence resources being used to host sex chats during work hours. Government workers are mad about actually having to show up at their place of business (government offices) and the IRS fires workers then (in my opinion) targets the taxpayers by closing 120 offices that typically provide assistance to said taxpayers in filing taxes, and USAID is closed freeing government workers who should have been raising questions about some of the expenditures to seek employment elsewhere…

As I processed all of this, I couldn’t help but think that government jobs are freakin cushy. After the dust settles I’ll be applying for one of those jobs!

Probably not…

These government jobs appear to be playpens. I say that as someone who while working in technology saw a lot of software development playpens usually populated by mostly Indian workers and very young fresh out of college horribly inexperienced programmers.

Bean bags, video games, expensive coffee and energy drinks, top of the line laptops (when desktop machines 1/2 the price would have done just as well). Entire sections of departments were walled off and “No Go Zones” where the “Developers” spent most of their time chatting in Hindi, playing games, or sleeping. I suspect most of these people were H1B1s but I don’t know for sure.

What I do know is that there wasn’t a lot of work getting done. I also know that schedules kept slipping, products kept being delayed, and the quality of what work was being done was generally low.

Given the similarities, Musk & his techies are the perfect people to walk into these government agencies because they’ll take one look and know exactly what the hell is going on.

Even though Mush is a fan of H1B1s, I suspect that when he cleaned out X he saw a fair share of these “Safe Spaces” where screwing around on the company dime had become acceptable.

Someone like him, (God I’d love to help him tear through these government departments,) probably has to head to accounting. I’d love to walk in with him, then peal off to go into the technology wing and IT departments. Believe me, I know where to look for a bunch of lazy useless salaried and expensive individuals, frittering away money on equipment and technologies that are unnecessary to day to day operations but lots of fun to play with.

As an aside, the best day at one place I worked, was the day a new owner walked in, went directly to the developers playpen and fired everyone screwing around in there instantly. “You’re all fired! Go to HR they’ve got your packages waiting for you.”

This new owner had fired our HR department and replaced it with his own the week before. That’s why no-one saw it coming. The H1B1s all freaked out. Some crying, others angrily demanding their jobs be given back to them.

Their cries and complaints fell on deaf ears. The next thing he asked was if the contents of the playpen were personal property or had the company purchased it? When he got no answer, security, and hired movers, stepped in and started carrying the shit to the dumpster.

One of the developers threw his $3000 dollar Apple laptop across the room. The new owner pointed at the guy. Security escorted him and his broken laptop in the direction of HR. The new owner said quite plainly, the cost of that machine would be deducted from the former employee’s pay.

I remember thinking it was a great day even if I was about to lose my job too.

The arrogance and insufferable behavior the developers has shown to those of us tasked with testing their dreck software made it worth it.

Interestingly, we didn’t lose our jobs that day. The new owner asked for our honest evaluation of the state of the software and how far the project really was behind. We told him.

He cancelled the project and merged us into one of his other companies. Our original company disappeared completely.

It turns out this man bought our company for some patents and source code to previous successful products. Products that had been built, prior to the developer playpen being installed.

Because of this experience I see all the screaming, pearl clutching, and clothes rending as nothing more than what I saw at that company that day.

The layabouts have been caught. Unfortunately there are good people, good workers that are also being hurt in the process.

Alexandria ocasio cortez aoc tax rich afp 4268547959.There’s another thing to consider too.

Having USAID, or IRS, or FBI, or CIA on a resume with an end of employment date in 2025 means these people, all of them, might be really screwed.

They’re radioactive and no-one will be able to tell if they’re good employees or bad ones. So potential employers may bypass them entirely. Why hire trouble? Most corporations are generally risk averse.

The lesson that I think everyone should learn from this is as follows;

Crockett outburst 1.The good employees either didn’t, or couldn’t say person X, Y, or Z wasn’t doing their fair share of the work.

Perhaps it was because of fear of retribution, or DEI, or just not wanting to engage in political infighting because the risk was too high.

(I’ve been there, I know those hard choices. “Do I rock the boat and turn this shitty job into hell on earth, or keep my mouth shut, collect my paycheck and pray upper management fixes the problem?” After all it’s their job anyway.)

Thing is, not saying something, not reporting it, does a disservice to the company, the department, and ultimately leads to corporate bloat decreasing the employees share of any bonuses.

There’s nothing worse than doing a shit ton of work, then having to suck it up when the laziest most worthless of your coworkers starts bragging about using their bonus, (that they “earned” simply by occupying space,) to book a vacation, when you know your boss won’t give you time off.

So the lesson everyone should learn, from government workers on down to mini mart employees is to speak up. If someone consistently isn’t doing their job, they shouldn’t have their job.

Hopefully with the rebirth of meritocracy, it won’t matter what race, gender, or national origin someone is. The only criteria will be, as it always should have been, is the person doing their work?

I think our government agencies are all learning that very lesson right now. It’s a hard lesson, there’s going to be a lot of broken eggs but it’s unavoidable because the situation has been allowed to get so bad.

I think that much of the problem can be laid at the feet of DEI, but seniority and tenure have as much to do with it as anything else.

Once meritocracy is removed there’s not much incentive.

When I started working in the late 1970s I worked my ass off because my boss had the ability to reward me with a check, which just made me work harder and yes, inspired competition between me and my colleagues. That in turn made our company successful and in the success we all got good raises!

By the late 1990s bosses couldn’t do that anymore, because it was perceived as unfair.

From then on we got yearly reviews and 2%-3% raises regardless of how hard we worked. So what was the point?

Not all of us were going to be able to move into management. Indeed not all of us wanted to move into management. Some of us liked being in the trenches and what we did without the headache of being a manager.

Unfortunately, that meant that if you wanted a decent raise to buy a house or have a child, you had no choice but to change jobs. In my opinion, the death of meritocracy and rise of employment racial quotas screwed America and American business.

We also had the overarching threat of layoffs, corporate mergers, and companies going bust. So even if we didn’t have merit raises, we still had to be at least a bit leaner, flexible, and aggressive to keep our employment somewhat stable.

The government workers in the news right now seem to have never experienced what we in corporate America took for granted.

For them, it appears that sitting in their cubicles, doing little work, not rocking the boat, and hanging around for years, was enough to get pretty high pay, excellent benefits, and decent raises and never fear being laid off, or losing their jobs for any reason.

I guess the real world intruding in their safe spaces is shocking and unsettling.

Our politicians screaming about unfair treatment of government workers have obviously got to be voted out of office too.

Their unrealistic beliefs and lack of oversight will simply insure that after this mess is cleaned up, they’ll allow the same mistakes to be made all over again.

Today is “Stinkys” spa day

Pretty much the whole day will be shot. It’s just as well, I won’t be tempted to look at the news.

I also won’t have to see Elizabeth Warren, Jasmine Crockett, AOC, or some government worker whining on X about their horrible mistreatment.

Lieawatha (Warren) has pissed me off so much I can’t see straight. She is posting about every 15 minutes on X and usually whatever she’s posting is easily disproven with a 1.5 second news search. But we all know there are people that will not spend the 1.5 seconds to cross check the lying bag of feces. I’m tired of being lied to, I’m more tired of having to check every damn thing this woman says.

Crockett is an absolute moron. Does she hear herself saying 5K won’t do anybody good? She was on her knees licking Biden’s ass over a 700 or 1000 dollar check to “help” out the American public who the Democratic Party had screwed.

Actually I’m sick & tired of Democrats in Washington altogether.

That being said, I’m getting impatient for arrests. If the government is corrupt, then I’m for calling it treason and hanging the perpetrators on the Capitol lawn.

When we start hearing things like trillions of dollars being wasted, that’s gonna fire us up. There was a headline today claiming that trillions of dollars in medicaid payments were made to ineligible people overseas. WTF?

Then I look at the Goddamn tax brackets and find that the small sum I get in social security is still high enough that the motherfucking IRS / Government is going to tax me on it. What the actual fuck is that about?

As I was looking at my taxes, I was thinking that I didn’t want the IRS to have my bank account number. Why? Because I don’t want to make it easy for those fuckers to put money in my account, more importantly I don’t want to make it easy for those fuckers to lay hands on what little money I have. 

I’d rather deal with handing a check to a bank teller.

That’s how little trust I have in these government fucks.

While lying scumbags in Congress allow and profit from breathtaking corruption and waste, they’re taxing Social Security recipients who barely have enough per month to keep up with their medications, food, and rent/mortgage.

Really?

This is why so many people are ready to show those fuckers in Washington D.C. what an insurrection actually looks like. I pray to God it doesn’t come to it, but if it does, I’m betting that there aren’t going to be trials, just firing squads.

I thought the Democrats were supposed to be looking out for the poor, the low income, and the disadvantaged people. Another lie!

The only time any politician is concerned about the people, is when they’re glad handing for votes. They’ll all bend the people over and fuck us to get what they want. 

This stuff running on the TV and through my head is exactly why I need a break.

I suppose the funny thing is that Democrats in Washington, and across the country still haven’t gotten the message. We voted for Trump, we voted for his cabinet, his administration, and the people that he told us he was going to have installed in various department that needed a good scrubbing.

Elon Musk can access my shit. Kash Patel can access my shit, Tulsi Gabbert can access my shit, Dan Bongino can access my shit. 

I trust these people so much more than I trust the old entrenched establishment.

What’s funny is that the whining Democrats seem shocked that the very people Donald Trump told everyone he was going to put in these positions, Are actually in the positions as specified.

We knew these folks were going to be doing exactly what they’re doing before the election. Guess What? 

WE’RE HAPPY they’re ripping through the bullshit. 

We’ll be happier when corrupt politicians are being marched out of their offices and down the Capitol steps.

If the new DOJ in concert with the FBI starts arresting people in D.C. My cock will be raw from rubbing one out every time a new arrest is made. I may even get chafed.

That’s what we’re all waiting for. We’re waiting for arrests just like children wait for Santa on Christmas Eve.

We don’t even care if some of those arrests are vengeance. Because some people really deserve it, and have brought it on themselves.

I need a break! Jesse will enjoy being “handsome” and having his fur all fluffy. I’ll enjoy him being happy about it too.